As the demand for integrated circuits having ever-small device features continues to increase, the need for improved illumination sources used for inspection of these ever-shrinking devices continues to grow. One such illumination source includes a laser-sustained plasma source. Laser-sustained plasma light sources are capable of producing high-power broadband light. Laser-sustained light sources operate by focusing laser radiation into a gas volume in order to excite the gas, such as argon or xenon, into a plasma state, which is capable of emitting light. This effect is typically referred to as “pumping” the plasma. The orientation of collection optics below the plasma-generating volume in traditional laser-sustained plasma sources results in plasma convective flow being directed to the internal portion of the source. Traditional sources require convection control, plume capture and temperature control to be implemented within the space inside the ellipsoidal collector optics of traditional sources. In currently implemented systems, a significant amount of effort is directed to the cooling of the top part of the plasma bulb and plasma convection plume mitigation, which is limited by the geometrical constraints resulting from the upward orientation of the collections optics. Air-cooling of the top portion of the plasma bulb causes warm air to propagate inside of the volume designated for laser and plasma light propagation and causes additional noise as a result of air wiggle. In addition, current methods of cooling the top of the plasma bulb via a downward-directed air shower results in air flow counter to the direction of natural convection, which leads to blowing of hotter air on colder bulb parts. In addition, there are severe instabilities in bulb-less system designs in which the convective plume propagates inside of the volume designated for laser and plasma light propagation. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a system and method for curing defects such as those of the identified above.